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boroshan
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 09, 2004 1:58 am    Post subject: Re: Try removing the "root=/dev/hdaX" parameter fr Reply with quote

denials wrote:

Quote:
Note:
If you receive a VFS kernel panic error when the kernel tries to mount your root partition, try removing the "root=" parameter from your configuration.


It's a nice idea but it doesn't seem to help. What I did notice was, on the odd occasion where my config has offered me a shell to fix the problem, most of my hdb drive has been missing

That's not the drive missing - hdb1 was there - but the rest of the partition devices on that drive were not present in /dev

This would go some way to explaining the kernel's inability to mount my root partition, since it lives on hdb.

A couple of obvious points: I have CONFIG_MSDOS_PARTITION=y and I have the partition type (reiserfs) compiled in CONFIG_REISERFS_FS=y

What else could cause partitions after the first to vanish like that?
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 09, 2004 10:28 am    Post subject: Re: Try removing the "root=/dev/hdaX" parameter fr Reply with quote

boroshan wrote:

It's a nice idea but it doesn't seem to help. What I did notice was, on the odd occasion where my config has offered me a shell to fix the problem, most of my hdb drive has been missing

That's not the drive missing - hdb1 was there - but the rest of the partition devices on that drive were not present in /dev

A couple of obvious points: I have CONFIG_MSDOS_PARTITION=y and I have the partition type (reiserfs) compiled in CONFIG_REISERFS_FS=y

What else could cause partitions after the first to vanish like that?


This is what we seem to have in common. Here's the hda-part of my fstab:

Code:

/dev/hda1      /boot      ext3      noauto,noatime      1 2
/dev/hda2      none      swap      sw         0 1
/dev/hda3      /usr      reiserfs   notail         0 0
/dev/hda4      /      reiserfs   notail         0 0


What is the fs-type of your root partition and other partitions?
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boroshan
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 09, 2004 2:47 pm    Post subject: Re: Try removing the "root=/dev/hdaX" parameter fr Reply with quote

Epikuros wrote:

This is what we seem to have in common. Here's the hda-part of my fstab:

[ snip ]

What is the fs-type of your root partition and other partitions?

Here's my fstab:
Code:

/dev/hda4               /boot           ext2    noauto,noatime  1 1
/dev/hdb3               /               reiserfs noatime,notail 0 0
/dev/hda3               none            swap    sw              0 0
/dev/cdroms/cdrom0      /mnt/cdrom      iso9660 noauto,ro,user  0 0
none                    /proc           proc    defaults        0 0
none                    /dev/shm        tmpfs   defaults        0 0

/dev/hda1       /dos/dos1       vfat    sync,auto,user,exec,umask=0
/dev/hdb1       /dos/dos2       vfat    sync,auto,user,exec,umask=0

victor:/usr/portage       /usr/portage          nfs     soft    0 0
victor:/usr/local/portage /usr/local/portage    nfs     soft    0 0

The only radical thing really is the NFS portage mount. There are more parts on hda, but that's my emergency redhad install for when I bork gentoo beyond redemption and I desperately need my internet gateway.

I'm planning a disk upgrade in the next couple of weeks - it might be interesting to replace that reiser part with an ext3 one and see if the problem goes away.
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 10, 2004 11:02 am    Post subject: some dmesg output related to hard-drives and filesystems Reply with quote

Here's some dmesg output with the 2.4 kernel. I don't know if it is of any help.

Code:

Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00beta4-2.4
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
hda: IC35L060AVER07-0, ATA DISK drive
hdb: TOSHIBA CD-ROM XM-6002B, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hdd: SAMSUNG CD-R/RW DRIVE SW-224B, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
hda: attached ide-disk driver.
hda: host protected area => 1
hda: 120103200 sectors (61493 MB) w/1916KiB Cache, CHS=7476/255/63
hdb: attached ide-scsi driver.
hdd: attached ide-scsi driver.
Partition check:
 /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0: [DM6:DDO] [remap +63] [7476/255/63] p1 p2 p3 p4


Code:

reiserfs: found format "3.6" with standard journal
reiserfs: checking transaction log (device ide0(3,4)) ...
for (ide0(3,4))
ide0(3,4):Using r5 hash to sort names
VFS: Mounted root (reiserfs filesystem) readonly.
Mounted devfs on /dev

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 20, 2004 8:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

For those of you who are using Western Digital hard drives and continuing to have the problem after trying the above suggestions, check the following. First, double check to make sure that Advanced partition selection and PCI BIOS support under it are enabled, then dig up your Western Digital data tools disk (if you still have it) or find someone with a Windows box and go to http://support.wdc.com/download/#dlgtools. Get the Data Lifeguard tools and use them to uninstall EZ-Bios from the boot disk (steps can be found in the Knowledge Base on WD's site) and try again. The 2.6 kernel becomes hung up on EZ-Bios and fails to find any of the other partitions, apparently.
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 20, 2004 9:07 am    Post subject: That'll be it! Reply with quote

I was just wondering about that. Western digital. E-Z-Bios. That'll be the problem.

Now where did I put that flaming disk...
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 20, 2004 2:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

HellFyre wrote:
Get the Data Lifeguard tools and use them to uninstall EZ-Bios from the boot disk (steps can be found in the Knowledge Base on WD's site) and try again. The 2.6 kernel becomes hung up on EZ-Bios and fails to find any of the other partitions, apparently.


I don't think I have the EZ-Bios(I have an IMB DeskStar hard-drive). At least the Data Lifeguard 11 didn't have any option regarding to it. As my system boots however a following message of Dynamic Drive Overlay with blue background is shown:
Code:

Starting ONTRACK
Western Digital
Dynamic Drive Overlay V9.85
Copyright(c) Kroll Ontrack Inc. 1993-2003
Press space to boot from disk or Press C to boot from CD-ROM


When I try to remove Dynamic Drive Overlay with Data Lifeguard it complains that all data will be erased because my partitions are not ms-dos compatible. Will my kernel work if I remove the DDO? It would be nice to know as I would't want to format my hard-drive in vain.

Edit: Ok. If nobody tells me not to do it I will uninstall DDO in a couple of weeks. It is a pain in the ass anyway.
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 28, 2004 4:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have the same problem with a drive that reports DM6:DDO on a 2.4 kernel, but 2.6 refuses to read it.

Seems like the solution is to add the following to your kernel line in /boot/grub/grub.conf:

Code:
kernel [...] hda=remap63


Works great here!
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 28, 2004 5:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Intesresting. Where'd you get the number from? Turns out I switched my WD drive after a nasty crash a while back, so it's not the cause of my problem.
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 28, 2004 5:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

boroshan wrote:
Intesresting. Where'd you get the number from?

http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1817
boroshan wrote:
Turns out I switched my WD drive after a nasty crash a while back, so it's not the cause of my problem.

Sorry for the mixup, i was answering to Epikuros problem.
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 28, 2004 5:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

humillo wrote:

Sorry for the mixup, i was answering to Epikuros problem.

Aye, I know :D I was just hoping that since Epikuros and myself seem to be the last two holdouts, maybe I could find some help for my problem from the same source.

Thanks for replying - I'll try and see if I can find anything there for my setup
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 28, 2004 6:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

boroshan wrote:
... maybe I could find some help


I had a read through the thread and it seems like this post should solve your problem, did you try it?

Stolz wrote:
Ok, I think I've found the solution.

I was using the option
File systems ---> Partition Types --->[*] Advanced partition selection --> [*] Windows Logical Disk Manager (Dynamic Disk) support

but the correct one is
File systems ---> Partition Types --->[*] Advanced partition selection --> [*] PC BIOS (MSDOS partition tables) support

Hope that it helps.
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 28, 2004 8:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

humillo wrote:

I had a read through the thread and it seems like this post should solve your problem, did you try it?

Alas, yes.

looking back at the info I posted, I should really edit some details.
Especially the bit where I report using Windows logical disk thingy.

Anyway:
Code:

[*] Advanced partition selection                                x x 
[ ]   Acorn partition support                                   x x   
[ ]   Alpha OSF partition support                               x x   
[ ]   Amiga partition table support                             x x   
[ ]   Atari partition table support                             x x   
[ ]   Macintosh partition map support                           x x   
[*]   PC BIOS (MSDOS partition tables) support                  x x   
[ ]     BSD disklabel (FreeBSD partition tables) support        x x   
[*]     Minix subpartition support                              x x 


The minix bit was enabled cos I was doing some work on tomsrtbt - though I suspect all I needed was the file system since floppies aren't generally big enouh to warrant partitioning

I'll take it out and see if that makes a difference
[edit]
I did and it didn't

I think I'll try doing a make mrproper and reconfigure from scratch - it's got to be something silly
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 29, 2004 8:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

humillo wrote:

Seems like the solution is to add the following to your kernel line in /boot/grub/grub.conf:

Code:
kernel [...] hda=remap63


Works great here!


Didn't work here. The exact 2.6-portion of the grub.conf is now
Code:

title=Gentoo Dev Kernel
root (hd0,0)
kernel (hd0,0)/vmlinuz-2.6.5-gentoo-r1 hda=remap63 root=/dev/hda4 video=vesafb vga=792

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PostPosted: Thu Apr 29, 2004 9:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Epikuros,

Have you tried using lilo? I saw a post somewhere, (I can't find it at the moment) where someone fixed a VFS panic by switching to lilo.

I have to say that it didn't work for me, but I don't remember seeing it in this thread. Worth a shot, perhaps
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 30, 2004 5:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

boroshan wrote:

Have you tried using lilo? I saw a post somewhere, (I can't find it at the moment) where someone fixed a VFS panic by switching to lilo.


Nope, didn't work. As my studies are over for this spring I should have the time to uninstall DDO next week.

edit: forgot it but I noticed the following message before kernel panic. I might have written it on the thread earlier but I find it easier to write again than to check :wink:

Code:

devfs_mk_dir: invalid argument.<6> hda: hda1[DM]

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PostPosted: Mon May 03, 2004 10:37 am    Post subject: Uninstalled DDO - no change Reply with quote

After uninstalling DDO succesfully the booting with 2.6-branch still ends in kernel-panic. The only change I noticed during bootup was in the error I mentioned in my previous message: now the end of the error-message was changed to something like hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4
I made a no significant changed in partitioning; hda3 is now root while hda4 mounts to /usr as it used to be other way around. These both still have reiserfs as the filesystem(hda1 is still ext3).

afaik there are no other things(drive tools or something) installed in MBR or at least they don't tell me of their existence during boottime.

I think I have tried practically everything and the only things I'm still planning to test are the ones that will be suggested in this topic in the future. If no other solution appears I will just buy a new hard-drive when I want to change to the use of the 2.6-branch.

Submitting a bug would also be nice but as I mentioned earlier it is difficult to prove that it's not about a missing reiserfs-support or something.
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 21, 2004 9:51 am    Post subject: I too have a WD HD Reply with quote

I'm a bit of a noob, but let me see if I understand. WD has a built-in firmware that can mess with my partitions?

Well, my reiserfs partition seems to have disappeared. I can't post a fstab, because even in Knoppix 3.6 (running kernel 2.4.27), there is no way of recognizing my reiserfs partition on hd3. Interestingly enough, my /boot partion on hda1 (ext2) did not disappear.

My kernel has reiserfs compiled in. MsDOS partion is not compiled in. I thinik I installed on this system before and it didn't pinochet my reiser partition off to neverland. And I ran smartctl and I'm pretty sure the HD is in good shape (plus it's brand new). Anyway what's the word, now?
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 15, 2004 8:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you very much for these TIPS!

This is the part that solved my problem.
Quote:

Partition selection support
If you partitioned your drive under a different operating system, you may need to enable partition selection support in the kernel. In both the 2.4 and 2.6 kernels,

Code:

Code:
File systems
 -> Partition types
 -> Advanced partition selection


I enabled these two option :

[*] "PC Bios MSDOS partition map support"
[*} "Windows Logical Disk Manager (Dynamic Disk) support"


My harddisk previously contains Windows98 (partitioned in two C: & D:)
Then I decided to install GentooHardened in drive C: (/dev/hda)
the resulting partition became:
Code:


 /dev/hda1        /boot
 /dev/hda2       (Fat32 drive D:)
 /dev/dha3        swap
 /dev/hda4        /           (root)



Then the "VFS kernel panic" problem came.
At first I thought its the GRSec/PAX options that is causing the problem,
until I found this "really helpful HOWTO".

It would save a lot of install trouble if it was briefly mentioned in the Kernel config section of the handbook, because a lot of people move from windows to Linux while keeping some windows partition of the harddisk intact.

I don't know if using GENKERNEL could have solved this problem, but I wan't the GRSec/PAX in my kernel that's why I insisted on doing the manual compile.
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 10:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here's one more solution to this problem if nothing else worked:

If you have a single IDE hard drive in your computer, and the jumpers are set incorrectly (i.e. set to slave or using the wrong connector when using cable select), the Gentoo kernel will see it as /dev/hdb instead of hda.

To determine if that's what's happening, boot to your defunct install, and when it gives you the Kernel Panic message, scroll up in the text (Shift+Page Up) to where your IDE devices. It will have your CD drives as well as your hard drive. They will be in this format:

hd? : <Brand and/or Model of ID Device>

where ? is a letter indicating which link in the IDE chain it is.

If your hard drive says hdb or something unexpected, either change your jumpers on your hard drive so it's explictly the master (check your HD manuals :D ) , or change your /etc/lilo.conf and /etc/fstab to reflect the right devices (change hda1, hda2, etc. to hdb1, hdb2, etc.)

Hope that helps someone.
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 11:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Okay I'm a completely n00b at this. Gonna poke my head in this thread cos I have no idea what's going on. I followed the Install Handbook to the t and I'm getting this error. Now I don't know how to fix it, cos it just stops at this error. Should I put the liveCD back inside? I used reiserfs for my hda3 because my friend suggested it. Now I'm really confused, cos I do remember enabling reiserfs support in the kernel setup. Help!
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 1:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

KevC wrote:
Okay I'm a completely n00b at this. Gonna poke my head in this thread cos I have no idea what's going on. I followed the Install Handbook to the t and I'm getting this error. Now I don't know how to fix it, cos it just stops at this error. Should I put the liveCD back inside? I used reiserfs for my hda3 because my friend suggested it. Now I'm really confused, cos I do remember enabling reiserfs support in the kernel setup. Help!


Well, I haven't installed gentoo for quite a while but I think I would try to boot from liveCD. After you get to the console(where you can enter commands that is) you should be able to mount the partition of the hard-drive your /usr/src/linux lies in, usually the root-partition(/) if you don't have a separate partition for /usr or something:
$mount /dev/hda2 /mount/gentoo
May not work though as I really can't remember the exact directories that exist after liveCD-boot and if you can create any new directories with mkdir so /mount/gentoo might not work.
After you have the partition mounted go and edit the kernel configuration with make menuconfig.

Another "quick" way is to start from scratch with installation and use some other fs than reiserfs(quick way as in "don't have to wait until someone gives a better answer than epikuros").

Speaking of which: someone might take the time to give that better answer.
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 23, 2004 9:52 pm    Post subject: have the same problem nothing helps Reply with quote

VFS: cannot open root device "hda3" or unknown-block(3,3)
Please append a corect "root= boot option
Kernel panic- not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(3,3)

I'm definitely noobie. I've read a lot of posts where people are using reiserfs, sata drives, etc etc. I have one hard drive. it had windows. I wiped it so now fstab:

/dev/hda1 /boot ext3 noauto, noatime 12
/dev/hda3 / ext3 noatime 01
/dev/hda2 none swap sw 00
/dev/hda4 /home ext3 noatime 00

kernel has ext3 support built in, has the msdos partition type thing checked, and as dev support.

my grub:

default 0
timeout 1
title=gentoo linux 2.6.9
root (hd0,0)
kernel (hd0,0)/kernel-2.6.9-gentoo-r9 root=/dev/hda3

I even tried the suggestion to remove the root= option for the kernel

I still get the error and can't boot.

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PostPosted: Fri Dec 24, 2004 1:36 pm    Post subject: Re: have the same problem nothing helps Reply with quote

galtthedestroyer wrote:
kernel has ext3 support built in, has the msdos partition type thing checked, and as dev support.

my grub:

default 0
timeout 1
title=gentoo linux 2.6.9
root (hd0,0)
kernel (hd0,0)/kernel-2.6.9-gentoo-r9 root=/dev/hda3


I would suggest that you try a 2.4-branch kernel for starters. I presume that you have created the partitions and filesystems according to the installation instructions...
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 28, 2005 8:28 am    Post subject: the 2004.3 install handbook and 2.6 kernel configuration Reply with quote

Just to confirm and reiterate, I successfully booted a 2.6 kernel only after turning on PC BIOS support in File Systems->Partition Types. This does not seem to be on by default.
I was using the LiveCD and the handbook from the LiveCD. The need for PC BIOS support should be highlighted in the next version of the handbook.
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